Middlemen in English Business 



411 



raised by their rank and whose influence they increased by their 

 energy."^ As early as 1633-5 there were nine hundred famiHes within 

 the walls of the City of London who were descended from the country 

 gentry and had preserved proof of their descent. The great majority 

 of these were engaged in trade, and nearly every kind of trade was 

 represented.'- 



This practice of apprenticing rural folk infringed the townsmen's 

 monopolies, and Parliament sought to restrain it. In 1405 only 

 those were allowed to apprentice their children whose lands afforded 

 them a spending capacity of 205. per year. The Elizabethan Statute 

 of Apprentices, 1562, declared it to *'be unlawful to any Person 

 dwelling in any City or Town Corporate, . . . exercising any 

 of the . . . Crafts of a Merchant . . . Mercer, Draper, 

 etc. ... to take any Apprentice . . . except 

 the Father and Mother of such Apprentice . . . shall have 

 . . . Lands ... of the yearh' value of forty shillings."^ 

 The Act probably confirmed the practice of merchants apprenticing 

 freeholders' sons. 



The relative numbers of these recruits drawn from the different 

 districts roundabout a seaport varied, other things being equal, 

 inversely as the economic conditions of those districts respectively 

 were good. Newcastle drew apprentices from Durham, York, 

 Northumbria, Cumberland, Westmoreland and other places. The 

 total number of apprentices enrolled, during two and a quarter cen- 

 turies, into the Merchant Adventurers of that city, and the percentage 

 enrolled from each source are indicated in the following talkie:"' 



Recruits of Newcastle Merchants. 



1 Surtees, 101 : XXII. 



" "Visitation of London," 1633-5; Besant, Stu. Lond., 176. 



3 5 Eliz., Cap. 4, Sec. 27. 



^ Data taken from Surtees, 101 : XXIV. 



