Feature: Scottish Shops in the Eighteenth Century

Although the shop tax was only imposed for a short time the rolls provide an insight into retail between 1785 and 1789. Not surprisingly, the largest number of shops in 1785-6 were in Edinburgh (626) and Glasgow (600) and these figures grew to 717 and 680, respectively, by 1789. Despite being smaller in this period, Glasgow had more shops per person. These statistics contrast with Aberdeen, which had 150 shops. Some of the burghs making do with one shop above £5 value were Dingwall, Inveraray, Sanquhar, Annan, Cupar, Dunfermline, Kirkcaldy, and Linlithgow. Of the counties whose rolls survive, Midlothian and Renfrewshire had the most tax-paying shops.

Amongst the trades found in the shop tax rolls are hairdressers, foundries, wax makers, glovers, cabinet makers, perfumers, saddlers, grocers, spirit dealers, confectioners, haberdashers, hosiers, drapers, watch makers, copper smiths, book sellers, cutlers, trunk makers, china merchants, tobacconists, stationers, upholsterers, auctioneers, whip makers, seed merchants, rope makers, pewterers, iron mongers, painters, milliners, toy sellers, shoe makers, tin merchants, gun smiths and candle makers. Professionals such as surgeons and lawyers are also included in the shop tax records. In Edinburgh's financial quarter in and around Parliament Square, we find private banks as well as the Royal Bank of Scotland paying £10 duty, and the Bank of Scotland paying £5 duty (E326/4/6 page 49).

Shopkeepers in the burghs were burgesses, or 'freemen', with the right to trade within the burgh as merchants or craftsmen. Guilds or incorporations governed the various trades, each with their own rules regarding admission, standards and apprenticeships. Some guild records and friendly society records can be found in NRS. Most burgess and apprenticeship records are held in local archives. See our records guide.

Not surprisingly, there are more male shopkeepers than females in the rolls. In most cases, the women's names are given as 'Mrs'. The wives and widows are likely to have been carrying on the business of their husbands but often using shopkeeping skills acquired before marriage. Several single women in the rolls were keeping shops in their own right. Their most common occupation was millinery, but there were also a few haberdashers and grocers and plenty described simply as 'merchant'. We can also find a Miss Westland, confectioner, in Aberdeen, a Miss Wyllie, cotton merchant, in Glasgow, and one Ann Fraser, barber, in Aberdeen.

Millinery wasn't simply an extension of women's domestic activities but required professional training, and shopkeeping of any type involved a variety of skills including accounting and stock control. In the eighteenth century the most common type of apprenticeship for girls was shopkeeping. A few apprenticeship indentures can be found in the National Records of Scotland, such as that whereby Margaret Masterton, a tanner's daughter, was apprenticed to Janet Justice, shopkeeper and milliner, for two years, 13 October 1725 (RH9/17/298). The apprentice "in her employment of merchandising as a shopkeeper...diligently and faithfully attending on her shop in the Exchange and shewing all such needlework as she shall happen to be employed in". Another indenture bound Helen Campbell as apprentice to Margaret Pollock to learn the "art and employment of all coloured seam and white seam working, imbroidering satin seam, washing and dressing fine linneings, wax work, gum flowers, philigrams and others", 5 January 1714 (GD112/64/18/1). See 'Women and Work in Eighteenth-Century Edinburgh' by Elizabeth C. Sanderson, 1996.

NRS holds other records in which merchants appear. The Aberdeen shop tax roll includes one "John Adams Seedsman" (E326/4/4 page 1). We can find more details about John Adam's business in the papers of the Menzies family of Pitfodells. An account, dated 1788-9, details what the family had purchased from the seedsman: 13 lettuces, gourds, pompions, 10 kinds of pea, 6 kinds of bean, various radishes, herbs, carnations, 10 kinds of tender annuals for franes, 54 kinds of hardy annuals, cabbage, acorns and "balm of Gilead" (GD237/11/126/11).

Another retailer named in the 1787 shop tax roll for Edinburgh is Mrs Spalding, confectioner (E326/4/4 page 28). This is Susan Small whose husband Charles Spalding had died on 2 June 1783. His ten page inventory is recorded in Edinburgh commissary court register of testaments (CC8/8/126 pp.358-370) and values all "the Goods and Utensils in the defunct's shop" including:

seventy two bags unfinished sweet meats
two pound liquorice Cakes
small quantity of Jesuit bark
one pound St Catherines' prunes
crushed almonds
six cakes ginger bread
plain almond biscuit
two pounds mixed bisquit spunge
five pound Barlie Sugar
one and one half pounds Cinamon Tablet
one and half pounds Sugar candy
two Pounds seed cake and plum cake
two pounds orange peel
twelve potts containing Jelly Jam and marmlade weighting ten pounds
one half pound pepper mint dropps
a wooden pestle and mortar

...and plenty more besides.

Some of the retailers paying the 1780's tax were also customers of a painter named William Deas, who recorded the work he did for various shopkeepers amongst his customer records. Deas' day book, 1774-1781 (GD1/548/1) indicates what some of the taxpayer's shops actually looked like. For instance, Walter Brunton, sadler, had "Brunton's Sadlery Ware Room" painted in gold letters and the shop itself was painted in a "blush colour" with "green mouldings". William Norrie paid Deas for a shop sign with "Norrie's Oil and Colour Shop, dye stuffs of all kinds' painted in gold letters. Some of the other shop signs that William Deas painted featured appropriate symbols; a rose (for a perfumier), loaves (for a baker), a lock (for an ironmonger), a hat (for a hatter) and a leg with stocking (for a hosier).

The best known shop owner in the tax rolls is one William Brodie, cabinet maker (or wright). This was the infamous Deacon Brodie (1746-1788), whose double life as both an upstanding citizen and thief, inspired Robert Louis Stevenson's novel 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'. From 1756 Brodie joined his father, Francis, in the family's prosperous cabinet making business located in Brodie's Close on the south side of Edinburgh's Lawnmarket. In 1782 he succeeded his father as Deacon of the Incorporation of Wrights - a position which also entitled him to a seat on the Town Council. The shop tax roll for 1787-1788 tells us that his cabinet making shop was assessed at £15 a year and he paid 15 shillings duty on it. Brodie's apparent respectability hid his involvement in corruption and house-breaking. A failed attempt on the Edinburgh Excise Office led to his eventual arrest and trial. He was sentenced to hang, and was put to death on 1 October 1788.