Middlemen in English Business 281 



described the arrival of the west country clothiers in London, about 

 1630, as follows: "they were saluted by the Merchants, who awaited 

 their coming thither (to the London Inns), and always prepared for 

 them a costly Supper, where they commonly made their Bargaine 

 . . . The next Morning they went to the Hall, where they met the 

 Northerne clothiers."^ 



Each clothier adopted a certain mark, trademark by which his 

 cloths were distinguished; certain clothiers' cloths attained to a repu- 

 tation for special good qualities and met with readier sale than those 

 less reputed.- But two counter-tendencies were in operation whereby 

 the clothiers' mark became less important. One was the claiidestine 

 foreign trade in woolens by which cloth of poorer quality in material 

 and workmanship could be exported at inviting prices and no insist- 

 ence or attention was put upon the marks of the maker; to meet this 

 competition abroad poorer qualities of cloth found market through 

 Blackwell Hall and trademarks were deemed less important by the 

 generality of clothiers and buyers.^ The other counter-tendency 

 came by way of the separation of the selling clothier and the buying 

 merchant or draper by the rise about 1660 of a new class of salesmen 

 at Blackwell Hall known as factors. Heretofore the direct contact 

 between the maker and the merchant forced the maker to pay close 

 attention to the workmanship, for the responsibilit}- for fraudulent 

 or defective cloth could be unmistakably placed. But the inter- 

 polation of the factor removed in part this sense of responsibility; 

 when once the factor recommended a certain kind or design of cloth, 

 dispatch to the factor became the chief objective and less emphasis 

 was given to workmanship and trademarks.'' 



One phase of the business at Blackwell Hail was the dealings in 

 domestic and foreign wool. Not only was it a place where cloth was 

 bought and sold, but the clothier here also bought and carried away a 

 goodly part of the wool he used. Leaden Hall had likewise been a 

 considerable wool market from early days.^ By means of this double 

 market, i.e., for wool and woolens, the carrier or clothier had a ware 

 to carry each way and in this way economized time and costs in his 



' Deloney, Thomas, Ch. II. 



- Defoe, Com. with Fr., 43. See V. C. H., Somers, II, 409 for regulation of such 

 seals and marks in 1591; Acts of P. C, 1591, 97-9. 



^ See this opinion in a pamphlet, J. B., Interest of Great Br. Considered, 21. 



'' This complaint fonned part of the "Clothiers Complaint" (1692), q. v. 7-8. 



* According to Stow, Survey, 176, much of the Hall was given over to stowage 

 of woolsacks and to wool-winders and packers at the time he wrote, i.e. 1600. 



