Contenidos de la clase:

NAME (C om m on spelling in P ort Books) NAME (In Church records) BIRTH­ PLACE DUTCH CHURCH MEMBERSHIP STATUS WIFE

Member Deacon Elder

Daniel van HASEVELT HASEVELDT

R o n se, Flanders 1585 1599 - M e rch a n t S tranger 1. Ja n n ek en Beeckm ans o f London 2. M ary G erardron 3. C atherine Sas

John MOUNCEY de MONCIJ

leper, Flanders 1597 1612 1621 Naturalised 1610 M agriete C ourten of London, wid. of M atthijs B oudaen Abraham RUSHOULT RUSSOUT Gent,

Flanders 1608 .

M e rc h a n t S tranger

Catherine de W ale o f Engelm unster Samuel de VISSCHER VISSCHER Emden,

E .Friesland ? 1609 1610 D enizen

2. E ster Clockaert, wid. o f Ja n Abeels C iprian GABRY GABRIJ A ntw erp,_{B rabant} ? - - M e rch a n t_{S tranger G hent}A nna M alepart o f Peter JA CO BS JACOBSZ A ntw erp,_{B rabant} 1577? 1595 1601 D enizen

1. M aekens s ’M artelars

ofOudenarde

2. Sara Jannsen o f

London John SAS SASS ? 1580? - - M e rc h a n t_{S tranger} C ath . . .

Jo h n van GALE GHELE London 1603 - - _{b o rn}E n g lish ?

A bram van CAUTER van der _CAUTER Haarlem,_Holland 1613 - - M e rch a n t_{S tranger} Jo a n n a G odtschalck _{wid. o f Jaques V eruin}

William de VISSCHER VISSCHER Emden,_E.Friesland 1617 1632 1639 N aturalised₁₆₆₀ C ornelia de Visscher _{o f Am sterdam}

Adam LAWRENCE LAURENS London 1609 1628 1632 D enizen Judith v an d en B rugghe_{o f Norwich}

Although there was no formal guild system among the strangers, it seems that training was similar to that for English boys: a formal apprenticeship including a time served abroad as a factor, followed by a period as a journeyman or junior partner with an established merchant, before the start of a career either as a sole trader or in a more equal partnership.

Andreas Boeve had come to London from Kortrijk at the age of six. Despite his father’s trade as a turner, Andreas was apparently apprenticed to a merchant, for in 1594 he was living in Mincing Lane with Adrian de Poorter, an Antwerp merchant who had come to London in 1565 ‘for religion’. T h e previous year Poorter’s household had included ‘an apprentice of 22 years’, presumably Andreas Boeve.^® By 1599, he was living with Peter van Loor in Fenchurch Street, possibly as a junior partner for he was assessed separately for the lay subsidy. Further, both contributed towards the loan of February 1601 when the crown raised £21,900 from the strangers, van Loor providing £500 and Boeve £50.^^ At

69 Kirk & Kirk (1900)*, ii, 269.

7 0 In his will o f 1625, Prob. 11/149, sig. 99, Andreas Boeve stated he was 57, i.e. bom in 1568, which would have made him 25 in 1593. However, accurate dating was not a feature of sixteenth century records - in 1571 Adrian de Poorter was said to have come to London six years previously, in 1565, but in 1593 had been in the city for 26 years, i.e. since 1567.

71 Peter van Loor became a major financier lending an estimated £35,000 to James I, Grell (1989), 4. He was one of the very few strangers before the Civil War to be naturalised and to be knighted.

child was baptised in May 1601, he was elected deacon of the Dutch Church in 1603 and became a denizen the following year.^^ By 1609, he was among the principal merchant strangers in the linen trade importing some £5,400 of goods (Table 5.1). For the next fifteen years Andreas Boeve dominated the import trade in damasks and diapers (Table 5.11). These table linens were a notable proportion of his business, representing in 1609, some 40 per cent of his imports of linen cloth and 20 per cent of his total trade. Despite a wide knowledge of international trade and finance through his apprenticeship with Adrian de Poorter and association with Peter van Loor, he concentrated his own trade in the Spanish Netherlands, presumably utilising local networks established through personal family connections with the entrepreneurs and merchants of both Kortrijk and the neighbouring linen markets of Iseghem, Roeselare and Menen.

Traces of other apprenticeships emerge from similar documents. Roger Turlott [Huerlot] from Iseghem who like Boeve traded in Flemish linens, was servant to Hans Woulters in 1599. Woulters was a wealthy merchant of international experience who had arrived from Brussels in 1564.^3 Turlott rapidly established his own trade and in 1607 married Rachel, the daughter of Michael Corsellis. In 1609, Turlott was among the leading importers of linens (Table 5.5). In contrast to Boeve and Turlott, Abram Beard [Baert] traded in Dutch linens from the Zeeland and Holland poits (Table 5.6). He was apprenticed to Peter Jacobs [or Jacobson] who came from an Antweip merchant family and also traded largely through the northern ports (Table 5.5).^^

The merchant strangers were concerned that their childrens’ education should fit them for their apprenticeship and subsequent trade. In 1638 when the Dutch Church proposed to appoint a cantoi/schoolmaster, candidates were sought who could teach writing and arithmetic, and in addition English, French and Dutch.^^ Such a syllabus and its availability to girls may suggest why considerably more Dutch than English women continued to run linen import businesses after the deaths of their husbands. It was customary for the widow of a London merchant to wind up her late husband’s estate or to continue his trade until she either remarried or her son was capable of assuming the responsibility. There are a few examples of English widows trading in linen such as Ellinor Nicolson and Catharine Pomfret, although the scale of their trade was very modest.76 In contrast, there are several merchant strangers’ widows who operated on a considerable scale. Margaret Courteene traded for at least six years after William’s death, importing linen cloth valued at £3,200 in 1609 (Table 5.5). At the same time her two sons

72 Moens (1884)*, Shaw (1911)*.

7 3 Kirk & Kirk (1900)*, ii, 85, 190, 213, 232, 239; iii, 68.

74 In his will Prob. 11/144, sig. 117 of 23 June 1623 Peter Jacobson left £2, ‘to Abraham Baert at this present my servant’.

7 5 See Grell (1989), 113.

William and Peter, and her son-in-law Jan de Moncij were apparently trading in a separate partnership. Similarly, albeit for only two years, Joanna Boeve continued Andreas* trade before she handed over to her son William in 1627. The widows of Lewes Boeve, Lewes van Dam, Peter Soen the elder, Ciprian Gabry and Daniel van Harinckhoek also continued their late husbands’ trade.^^

It may be that the incidence of trading in partnerships was higher among English merchants than the merchant strangers which would have obviated the need for many widows to become involved. Nevertheless, the contemporary view was that the widows of merchant strangers had the ability to trade owing to their education and were encouraged to do so by the social attitudes of the stranger community. In 1668, Sir Josiah Child wrote of the reasons for the ‘Netherlanders’ success,

The education of their children, as well Daughters as Sons, all which, be they of never so great quality or estate, they always take care to bring up to write perfect good hands, and to have full knowledge and use of A rithem etick and Merchants Accompts; the well understanding and practice whereof, doth strangely infuse into most that are the owners of that quality; of either Sex, not onely an ability for

commerce of all kinds, but a strong aptitude, love, and delight in it; and regard the women are as knowing therein as the men, it doth incourage their Husbands to hold on in their Trades to their dying days, knowing the capacity of their wives to get in their Estates, and carry on their Trades after their Deaths.'^®

S.3 MERCHANTS IMPORTING TABLE LINEN, 1660-1700

a) Merchants importing Holland 'damask and diaper

After the Restoration, little damask and diaper was imported from the Low Countries by merchant strangers and the few significant parcels entered in the merchant stranger port books were consigned to foreign ambassadors.^^ Among the English importers, however, were a number of merchants from stranger families who were legally English, either by naturalisation or by birth in England to denizens (Table 5.18).

The overall pattern of trade was akin to that earlier in the century, with similar quantities of napery being imported largely from the Spanish Netherlands (Table 4.1) and with three or four merchants dominant in any particular year (Table 5.15). The principal players over an

7 7 Table linen shipments to Susan van Dam, Joanna Bove, Mary Bove and Elizabeth Herringhooke were recorded in 1627, E190/30/2. Of the 55 merchant stranger contributors to the ‘Pirate M oney’ dated 10 August 1626, six were women. A list of the Merchants of the Intercourse of 1628 (i.e. strangers who were not denizens) had four ‘widdows’ out of thirty-nine. Hessels (1887)*, III, nos 1855 & 1904. 7 8 Child (1668)*.

7 9 E.g. E l 9 0 /5 3 /4 ,4 May 1671, from Ostend to the Venetian Agent, napery valued at £297;

but Pope has attracted some attention. Alexander Pope was bom about 1642 and is said to have served as a factor in Lisbon where he converted to Roman Catholicism. By 1672, he was established in London and in 1677 was recorded in the Little London Directory in Broad Street. His first wife died in 1679 and following his second marriage to Edith Turner he moved to Lombard Street. He drove a considerable trade during the 1680s, importing for example in 1685 fifteen parcels of napery from Flanders valued at £4,300 and plain linen at £1,380.*^ In 1688, his son, the poet Alexander Pope was bom and the family subsequently retired to Binfield in Windsor F o r e s t .In a typically witty line. Pope

nicely reflected both his father’s faith and trade: ‘A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn’.

TABLE 5.15 LOW COUNTRIES DAMASK AND DIAPER IMPORTS BY ENGLISH MERCHANTS. 1670-1700: