Middlemen in English Business 171 



the greatest meal and malt market in England.^ Here at Queenhithe 

 or other smaller markets of London these meal merchants of Chi- 

 chester, Arundel and the coast of Sussex and Hampshire had factors, 

 to sell their meal for them.'- 



About 1735 there was an elimination of the mealman's business 

 going on, which is described by Defoe as follows: "these Mealmen 

 generally live either in London, or within thirty miles of it, that 

 employment chiefly relating to the markets of London; they formerly 

 were the general buyers of corn— in all the great markets about 

 London, or within, thirty or forty miles of London, which corn 

 they used to bring to the nearest mills they could find to the 

 market, and there have it ground, and then sell the meal to the 

 shop-keepers, called mealmen, in London. But a few years past 

 have given a new turn to this trade; for now the bakers in Lon- 

 don, and the parts adjacent, go to the markets themselves and have 

 cut out the shopkeeping mealmen ;3 so the bakers are the mealmen 

 and sell the fine flour to private families, as the mealmen used to do. 

 And as the bakers have cut out the meal shops in London, so the millers 

 have cut out the mealmen in the country; and whereas they formerly 

 only ground the corn for the mealmen, they now scorn that trade, buy 

 the corn, and grind it for themselves; so the baker goes to the miller 

 for his meal, and the miller goes to the market for the corn .... 

 It is certain the mealmen are, in a manner, cut out of the trade, both 

 in London and in the country-, except it be those country mealmen 

 who send meal to London by barges, from all the counties bordering 

 on the Thames, or on any navigable river running into the Thames 

 west; and some about Chichester, Arundel, and the coast of Sussex, 

 and Hampshire, who send meal by sea.""* 



The various functions of the mealmen are apparent. He was a 

 dealer wholesale and retail in flour and meal. In London he kept 

 shop and sold to private families. In the upper Thames district he 

 was a wholesale shipper and dealer in meal. In the south coast region 

 he did an elevator business, caused corn to be ground and dressed, 

 shipped it to London, and sold it by means of his factors. Flour 



1 Defoe, Tour, II, 174. 



2 Defoe, Com. Eng. Tr., II, 179. 



^ That this elimination was not very complete or permanent, is evident from the 

 following statement from Smith, Essay on Com Trade, 22: "Whilst others (bakers) 

 buy all they Use, in London, more particularly, in Flour of the Mealmen, or Meal 

 Factors." Smith may have had in mind as mealmen the combined millcr-mealman. 



* Defoe, Com. Eng. Tr., II, 178-79. 



