Middlemen in English Business 135 



A. Badger. 



A badger (variously spelled bager, bodger, budger) was one who 

 bought corn or other commodities at one place and carried them else- 

 where to sell;^ an itinerant dealer who acted as middleman between 

 the producing farmer and the consumer.- He was a traveling buyer, 

 a carrier, and a seller in another market; these functions involved 

 others such as capitalist, speculator, etc. Nor does he seem to have 

 changed the scope of his activities in the seventeenth century; while 

 in the eighteenth the name badger was less used and gave place to 

 the simpler "buyer." He seems to derive his name from the "bag" 

 or "'bodge" in which he carried his grain, usually on horseback. 



B. Kidder. 



The kidder or kiddier performed the same function, viz. to buy from 

 producers their provisions and carry them to some market to sell." 

 In the legislation and decrees of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and 

 eighteenth centuries, kidder was always joined with badger, lader, 

 etc. — a group of terms meant to be inclusive of all who were known 

 corn-buyers or ingrossers.^ The origin of the name kidder is obscure. 

 The business of a kidder is illustrated at Beverley market in York- 

 shire about 1641, when on "calmedayes" "the Lincolnshire-men vente 

 and sell a greate parte of theire oatemeale, which they carry and sell 

 againe in Brigge Markette, and other markettes thereabouts."^ 

 They were inter-market dealers. 



C. Lader. 



A lader seems, as the name signifies, to have been one who lades. 

 It appears by a statute^ in 1542-3 that laders were corn-buyers who 

 bought corn up the Severn, put it aboard "Picards" of 15 or 36 tun, 



^ New Diet.; s. v. Badger. Cf. French 'blatier;' Usher, Corn Trade. 



^ Note its use in the following years: 1641, Best, Farm Books, 101, "The badgers 

 come farre, many of them; wherefore theire desire is to buy soone, that they may be 

 goinge betimes, for feare of beinge nighted." 1674, Ray, No. Co. Words, s. v. 

 Badger, " Badger, such as buy com, or other commodities in one place, and carry 

 them to another." 1695, Kennett, Par. Ant. Gloss., s. v. Carbody, Badger — "a 

 carrier or retailer of Bodgesor bags of com." 1700, Gough, Myddle, 115, "His im- 

 ployment was buying come in one market towne and selling it in another . . . ." 



'See Ray, S. and E. Co. Wds. s. v. Kidder, "Badger, Huckster, or Carrier of 

 Goods on Horseback." (Cited in New Diet.) 



^Surtees, 33:101. 



° 34-5 Henry VIH, Cap. 9. 



