Trade and Transport in the Turnpike Era 91 



him for the execution of orders, and regularly made his 

 appearance twice a year. 



Concerning the Manchester trade, Dr Aikin, in his 

 " Description of the Country from Thirty to Forty Miles round 

 Manchester " (1795), says : 



" For the first thirty years of the present century, the old 

 established houses confined their trade to the wholesale dealers 

 in London, Bristol, Norwich, Newcastle, and those who 

 frequented Chester fair. . . . When the Manchester trade 

 began to extend the chapmen used to keep gangs of pack- 

 horses, and accompany them to the principal towns with 

 goods in packs, which they opened and- sold to shop- 

 keepers, lodging what was unsold in small stores at the inns. 

 The pack-horses brought back sheep's wool, which was bought 

 on the journey, and sold to the makers of worsted yarn at 

 Manchester, or to the clothiers of Rochdale, Saddleworth and 

 the West Riding of Yorkshire. On the improvement of the 

 turnpike roads waggons were set up, and the pack-horses 

 discontinued ; and the chapmen only rode out for orders, 

 carrying with them patterns in their bags. It was during the 

 forty years from 1730 to 1770 that trade was greatly pushed 

 by the practice of sending these riders all over the kingdom, 

 to those towns which before had been supplied from the whole- 

 sale places in the capital places before mentioned." 



Thus one effect of the improvement in communications was 

 to allow of the Manchester manufacturers establishing direct 

 relations with retailers in the smaller towns who had hitherto 

 been supplied by the wholesale dealers in the large towns, 

 one set of profits being saved. Dr Aikin adds : 



" Within the last twenty or thirty years the vast increase 

 of foreign trade has caused many of the Manchester manu- 

 facturers to travel abroad, and agents or partners to be fixed 

 for a considerable time on the Continent, as well as foreigners 

 to reside at Manchester. And the town has now in every 

 respect assumed the style and manners of one of the com- 

 mercial capitals of Europe." 



In an article headed " Change in Commerce," published in 

 No. XI. of " The Original," (1836), Thomas Walker gives 

 (" by tradition," as he says) some particulars as to the 

 methods of business followed by a leading Manchester mer- 

 chant who was born there early in the eighteenth century 



