312 Textiles and Textile Materials Trades 



houses. Such were, in part, the role of the wholesaler in respect to 

 the retailer.^ 



But he dealt with others than retailers; the merchant, for instance, 

 bought from him. In making up a cargo the merchant was obliged 

 to procure a great variety of sortments; it profited him to buy at 

 wholesale, but not from the clothier directly, for the packages of 

 cloth the clothiers sent up were usually larger than he wanted; he 

 therefore applied to the Avholesale drapers for making up his motley 

 or mixed cargoes for export.- Greater expedition in securing a cargo 

 was also realized. In respect to the country draper, the London 

 draper acted as a central store and forwarder. The clothier found 

 advantage in the draper by way of a steady market. "The merchant" 

 bought "generally only against shipping times; the drapers" bought 

 "but small quantities at some special times of the year, and divers 

 others" bought "of the clothiers when they are most surcharged." 

 Thus these "worst and hardest pa\Tnasters" really served the clothiers 

 at all times of the year when they were "driven to London to sell 

 their cloths to pay the wool grower and the poor whom the}^ set on 

 work. "3 



Packer. 



While England was exporting wool in the early centuries there 

 existed at London a Company of Woolpackers who appear to have 

 been an association of masters whose artisans or yeomen were engaged 

 at packing and winding the wool for export. But this Company was 

 abandoned in the first quarter of the seventeenth century,^ very 

 Hkely from sheer want of business.^ They were superseded by packers 

 of cloth for export. 



"The Business of a Packer" was "to pack up all Sorts of Bale 

 Goods into proper Parcels fit for Exportation. They" were "answer- 

 able to their Employers if any damage happened to the Goods through 

 their Ignorance or Neglect."^ They were employed by the export- 

 ing merchant, and had good "Profits by their Business." 



^ The above advantages are on the authority of Savary, Par. Neg., II, 352-3. 



2 The same reasons and practice existed in Ireland in the Hnen trade; see "Letter 

 from a Merchant," 57-8. 



' S. P. Dom., Chas. I, CCLXXXII, 130. 



■•Hazhtt, Liv. Com., 153. 



'" See details of packing wool as done by the Celys; Cely Papers, XI, 15, 21, 28, 

 30, 32, etc. 



« Campbell, 201. 



