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Draper
Draper was originally a term for a retailer or wholesaler of cloth that was mainly for clothing. A draper may additionally operate as a cloth merchant or a haberdasher. History Drapers were an important trade guild during the medieval period, when the sellers of cloth operated out of drapers' shops. However the original meaning of the term has now largely fallen out of use. In 1724, Jonathan Swift wrote a series of satirical pamphlets in the guise of a draper called the ''Drapier's Letters''. Historical drapers A number of notable people who have at one time or another worked as drapers include: * Sir Thomas Adams, 1st Baronet (1586-1667/1668), Lord Mayor of the City of London * William Barley (1565?-1614), bookseller and publisher * Norman Birkett * Margaret Bondfield * Thomas Burberry, Founder of fashion brand "Burberry" * Eleanor Coade (1733–1821), successful businesswoman with Coade stone * John Graunt, founder of the science of demography * Antonie van Leeuwenhoek ...
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William Barley
William Barley (1565?–1614) was an English bookseller and publisher. He completed an apprenticeship as a draper in 1587, but was soon working in the London book trade. As a freeman of the Drapers' Company, he was embroiled in a dispute between it and the Stationers' Company over the rights of drapers to function as publishers and booksellers. He found himself in legal tangles throughout his life. Barley's role in Elizabethan music publishing has proved to be a contentious issue among scholars.Miller and Smith The assessments of him range from "a man of energy, determination, and ambition", to "somewhat remarkable", to "surely to some extent a rather nefarious figure". His contemporaries harshly criticised the quality of two of the first works of music that he published, but he was also influential in his field. Barley became the assignee of Thomas Morley, who as well as being a composer held a printing patent (a monopoly of music publishing). He published Anthony Holborne's ...
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Sir Thomas Adams, 1st Baronet
Sir Thomas Adams, 1st Baronet (1586 – 24 February 1667/1668) was the Lord Mayor of the City of London and a Member of Parliament for the City of London from 1654 to 1655 and 1656–1658. Adams was born in 1586, at Wem, Shropshire, educated at Shrewsbury School and admitted as a sizar to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University in 1600. He received his BA in 1605–6, and became a draper in London. Civic career In 1640, he was elected as sheriff, giving up his business, and applying himself to public affairs. He then served as Master of the Drapers' Company, sat as an alderman on the City of London Corporation, and was president of St Thomas' Hospital, which he probably saved from ruin, by discovering the frauds of a dishonest steward. In 1642 he became Colonel of the Blue Regiment, London Trained Bands. In 1645, he was elected Lord Mayor of the City of London, showing unusual disinterestedness, declining the financial advantages usually made by the sale of places which be ...
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John Graunt
John Graunt (24 April 1620 – 18 April 1674) has been regarded as the founder of demography. Graunt was one of the first demographers, and perhaps the first epidemiologist, though by profession he was a haberdasher. He was bankrupted later in life by losses suffered during Great Fire of London and the discrimination he faced following his conversion to Catholicism. Biography Born in London, John Graunt was the eldest of the seven or eight children of Henry and Mary Graunt. Graunt's father was a draper who had moved to London from Hampshire. In February 1641, Graunt married Mary Scott, with whom he had one son (Henry) and three daughters. He became a freeman of the Drapers' Company at age 21. Graunt worked in his father's shop until his father died in 1662, and Graunt became influential in the City. He was able to secure the post of professor of music for his friend William Petty in 1650. He served in various ward offices in Cornhill ward, becoming a common councilman about 1669 ...
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Guild
A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes depended on grants of letters patent from a monarch or other ruler to enforce the flow of trade to their self-employed members, and to retain ownership of tools and the supply of materials, but were mostly regulated by the city government. A lasting legacy of traditional guilds are the guildhalls constructed and used as guild meeting-places. Guild members found guilty of cheating the public would be fined or banned from the guild. Typically the key "privilege" was that only guild members were allowed to sell their goods or practice their skill within the city. There might be controls on minimum or maximum prices, hours of trading, numbers of apprentices, and many other things. These rules reduced free competition, but sometimes mainta ...
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William McGregor (football)
William McGregor ( 1846 – 1911) was a Scottish association football administrator in the Victorian era who is regarded as the founder of the Football League, the first organised association football league in the world. After moving from Perthshire to Birmingham to set up business as a draper, McGregor became involved with local football club Aston Villa, which he helped to establish as one of the leading teams in England. He served the club for over 20 years in various capacities, including president, director and chairman. In 1888, frustrated by the regular cancellation of Villa's matches, McGregor organised a meeting of representatives of England's leading clubs, which led to the formation of the Football League, giving member clubs a guaranteed fixture list each season. This was instrumental in the transition of football from an amateur pastime to a professional business. McGregor served as both chairman and president of the Football League and was also chairman of The ...
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Drapier's Letters
''Drapier's Letters'' is the collective name for a series of seven pamphlets written between 1724 and 1725 by the Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, Jonathan Swift, to arouse public opinion in Ireland against the imposition of a privately minted copper coinage that Swift believed to be of inferior quality. William Wood was granted letters patent to mint the coin, and Swift saw the licensing of the patent as corrupt. In response, Swift represented Ireland as constitutionally and financially independent of Britain in the ''Drapier's Letters''. Since the subject was politically sensitive, Swift wrote under the pseudonym ''M. B., Drapier'', to hide from retaliation. Letter 1 Intro Note Although the letters were condemned by the Irish parliament, with prompting from the British parliament, they were still able to inspire popular sentiment against Wood and his patent. The popular sentiment turned into a nationwide boycott, which forced the patent to be withdrawn; Swift was ...
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Eleanor Coade
Eleanor Coade (3 June 1733 – 18 November 1821) was a British businesswoman known for manufacturing Neoclassical architecture, Neoclassical statues, architectural decorations and garden ornaments made of ''Lithodipyra'' or Coade stone for over 50 years from 1769 until her death. She should not be confused or conflated with her mother, also named Eleanor.Since the mid-20th century, there has been some confusion between Eleanor and her mother (Eleanor, Elinore), as to which one ran the factory. This is primarily due to Miss Eleanor Coade's customary use of the title "Mrs"; this was a commonplace 'courtesy title' for any unmarried woman in business. But, analysis of the bills shows that Eleanor Coade (daughter) was fully in charge from 1771. ( Alison Kelly, ''Oxford National Dictionary of Biography'' (ONDB)) Alison Kelly states on page 23 of ''Mrs Coade's Stone'' – "Since mother and daughter had the same name, confusion has reigned over the contribution of each of them to the ...
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The History Of Mr Polly
''The History of Mr. Polly'' is a 1910 comic novel by H. G. Wells. Plot summary The protagonist of ''The History of Mr. Polly'' is an antihero inspired by H. G. Wells's early experiences in the drapery trade: Alfred Polly, born circa 1870, a timid and directionless young man living in Edwardian England, who despite his own bumbling achieves contented serenity with little help from those around him. Mr. Polly's most striking characteristic is his "innate sense of epithet", which leads him to coin hilarious expressions like "the Shoveacious Cult" for "sunny young men of an abounding and elbowing energy" and "dejected angelosity" for the ornaments of Canterbury Cathedral. Alfred Polly lives in the imaginary town of Fishbourne in Kent (not to be confused with Fishbourne, West Sussex or Fishbourne, Isle of Wight – the town in the story is thought to be based on Sandgate, Kent where Wells lived for several years). The novel begins ''in medias res'' by presenting a miserable ...
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Cloth Merchant
In the Middle Ages or 16th and 17th centuries, a cloth merchant was one who owned or ran a cloth (often wool) manufacturing or wholesale import or export business. A cloth merchant might additionally own a number of draper's shops. Cloth was extremely expensive and cloth merchants were often very wealthy. A number of Europe's leading banking dynasties such as Medici and Berenberg built their original fortunes as cloth merchants. In England, cloth merchants might be members of one of the important trade guilds, such as the Worshipful Company of Drapers. Alternative names are clothier, which tended to refer more to someone engaged in production and the sale of cloth, whereas a cloth merchant would be more concerned with distribution, including overseas trade, or haberdasher, who were merchants in sewn and fine fabrics (e.g. silk) and in London, members of the Haberdashers' Company. The largely obsolete term merchant taylor also describes a business person who trades in textiles ...
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Kipps
''Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul'' is a novel by H. G. Wells, first published in 1905. It was reportedly Wells's own favourite among his works, and it has been adapted for stage, cinema and television productions, including the musical ''Half a Sixpence''. Plot The eponymous character is Arthur "Artie" Kipps, an illegitimate orphan. In Book I, "The Making of Kipps", he is raised by his aged aunt and uncle, who keep a little shop in New Romney on the southeastern coast of Kent. He attends the Cavendish Academy, "a middle-class school", not a "board school",) in Hastings in East Sussex. "By inherent nature he had a sociable disposition", and he befriends Sid Pornick, the son of a neighbour. Kipps also falls in love with Sid's younger sister, Ann. Ann gives him half a sixpence as a token of their love when, at 14, he is apprenticed to the Folkestone Drapery Bazaar, run by Mr Shalford. The Pornicks move away and Kipps forgets Ann. He becomes infatuated with Helen Walshingham, ...
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John Lewis Partnership
The John Lewis Partnership plc (JLP) is a British company which operates John Lewis & Partners department stores, Waitrose & Partners supermarkets, its banking and financial services, and other retail-related activities. The privately-held public limited company is owned by a trust on behalf of all its employees — known as ''Partners'' – and a bonus, akin to a share of the profit, is paid to employees. John Lewis has around 80,800 Partners/employees as of 2020. JLP group is the third-largest UK non-traded company by sales in ''The Sunday Times'' Top Track 100 for 2016. The chain's image is upmarket, and its customers are likely to be more affluent consumers. It was a member of the International Association of Department Stores from 2004 to 2010. The Partnership also supplied the Ocado web supermarket with Waitrose own-brand foods and John Lewis own-brand non-food items such as home items e.g. furniture. This deal expired in September 2020, when Marks & Spencer began a new ...
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John Woodward (naturalist)
John Woodward (1 May 1665 – 25 April 1728) was an English naturalist, antiquarian and geologist, and founder by bequest of the Woodwardian Professorship of Geology at the University of Cambridge. Though a leading supporter of observation and experiment in what we now call science, few of his theories have survived. Life Woodward was born on 1 May 1665 or perhaps 1668, in a village, possibly Wirksworth, in Derbyshire. His family may have been from Gloucestershire; his mother's maiden surname was Burdett. At the age of 16 he went to London to be apprenticed to a linen draper, but he later studied medicine with Dr Peter Barwick, physician to Charles II. As a leading physician who had never been to university, Woodward was a prominent figure on the "modern" side in the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns in early 18th-century England, on the medical and other fronts. In 1692 Woodward was appointed Gresham Professor of Physic and in 1693 elected a fellow of the Royal Soci ...
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