206 Animal and Animal Products Trades 



was famous for its cheese from the sixteenth to the eighteenth 

 century. 1 



Somersetshire produced the famous Cheddar cheese.- It was man- 

 ufactured at a cooperative dairy among the farmers at Cheddar. 

 It brought a very high price, three or four times as much as the 

 (Cheshire cheese. A large part of the surplus came to London. 



Factor. The cheese in these various districts was bought up by 

 factors resident operating for the London cheesemongers. The fac- 

 tors in Cheshire \isited the farmers and contracted with them to 

 deliver their product at Chester or Frodsham.^ At Utto.xeter Market 

 in Staffordshire the cheesemongers of London maintained a factorage."* 

 At Woodbridge and at Dunwich in Suffolk some ver\' considerable mer- 

 chants were engaged as butter factors for Londoners.'^ On the other 

 hand, some pro\dncial cheesemongers engaged London factors who sold 

 their product for them. It was thought that the interposition of 

 these factors was one cause of the high prices of butter that ruled in 

 London as compared \nth the Bedford market in 1741, the former 

 being three times as high as the latter.^ In Warwich the factors were 

 really regrators. Atherstone in Warwich had a famous cheese fair, 

 where the cheese-factors bought up vast quantities and sold it again 

 at the Stourbridge fair which began about the same time but lasted 

 much longer. The buyers at Stourbridge sold again for the supply 

 of Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk." 



Cheesemonger. This tradesman is described in 1714 as "a Retailer 

 of Cheese, Butter, Eggs, Bacon, and Hams." His business was 

 "pretty precarious" by reason of the perishabiUty of his goods. ~^ 

 Edward VI had forbidden anyone to "buy to sell again any Butter or 

 Cheese, unless he . . . sell ... by Retail in open Shop, 

 Fair or Market, and not in Gross;" inn-holders and victuallers were 

 excepted for what they sold in their houses by retail. Retail was here 

 defined to appertain "only where a Waye of Cheese or a Barrel of 

 Butter, or of less Quantity and not above" was "sold at any one Time 

 to anyone Person in open Shop, Fair or Market." ' By a statute two 



' V. C. H., Oxford, 11, 277. 



2 Defoe, Tour, II, 30-1; V. C. H., Somers.. 11. 5.^8-9. 



^ Holland, Ches., 315-6. 



' Plott, Nat. Hist, of Staff., 122. 



■■' Defoe, Eastern Tour, 110-2. 



'^ "Considerations on the present," 13-4. 



'Defoe, Tour, n, 331. 



« Campbell, 281. 



9.^^ Ed. VI, Cap. 21. 



