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In one town a female once applied for permission to make a 
mantle, but the magistrates considered such an act unprecedented ; 
she and her sisters, however, persevered in spite of prosecution, 
and triumphantly won the day. They were allowed to make 
mantles, and in some instances petticoats—but stays and other 
articles of female dress were still denied and hence the prosecu- 
tion at Bath, to which we have just alluded. But remember 
thimbles were introduced from Holland by Loffing 1695, and 
needle making only dates from 1661. 
In 1714 troubles seem to have commenced for it was agreed 
(14 June) by general consent that copies be taken of the several 
Charters and Compositions belonging to the Company of 
Merchant Tailors of this city, and that the same be sent to 
Council for advice. and I imagine the mem., “ Master Davis, 
£8 9s, 6d. to pay off Mr. Anthony Biggs what is due to him 
(15th September, 1718),” has some reference to this. 
The troubles caused by the non-Freemen and illegal traders 
were the cause of the downfall of the company, and we can almost 
sympathize with them in their continued fight (it might almost 
be called a siege, for it was little else). Bath before the time of 
Queen Elizabeth was a city extending over only 50 acres, and 
even when enlarged through the exertions of the astute William 
Sherston by the addition of the Manor of Barton, and the lands 
of the Priory and a part of Walcot, was very small. Most of 
Walcot was outside the city, and here and in the village of Bath- 
wick, but more especially in Lyncombe and Widecombe, was the 
retreat and abode of non-Freeman Tailors who, having been pro- 
secuted, fled thither and set up and exercised their trades, not 
daring to work openly for their old customers, but coming 
secretly into the city and taking orders for, and actually measur- 
ing persons for their clothes, and then surreptitiously sending 
them home sometimes wrapped up in a cloth and carried by a 
woman under her cloak ; at other times sent in a basket as if 
: it were linen clothes brought from a washerwoman’s, sometimes 
