学术前沿|18世纪伦敦金融城经营奢侈品贸易的女商人

（图：2019年9月21日至10月18日，伦敦金融城外的露天展览“City Women in the 18th Century”，参见https://www.cam.ac.uk/citywomenutm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_content=1568972960）

"For at least five centuries Cheapside has been known for selling luxury goods. In the eighteenth century, its businesswomen traded as furniture makers, printers, fan-makers, silver- and goldsmiths, milliners and mantua makers, amongst other occupations."

"All of these businesswomen were members of London’s livery companies. This makes them easier to trace than would be the case in other English cities and towns, where women were often excluded from trade guilds."

"Marital status was no obstacle to running a firm: the City’s female entrepreneurs were single, married and widowed. Between them, they employed thousands of men and women."

个案

"The exhibition features Mary and Ann Hogarth, sisters of the artist William Hogarth: he designed their business card when they moved to new premises in 1730. The sisters sold fabrics and readymade clothes, as well as supplying the uniforms for Christ’s Hospital School which educated the orphaned children of City freemen."

"One of the most remarkable stories in the exhibition is that of the fan-making Sleepe sisters: Martha, Esther and Mary. Having learnt the ropes from their mother  - who ran a fan shop while bearing 15 children - Martha, Esther and Mary each went on to open their own shops on Cheapside."

"Martha Sleepe never married and traded in St Paul’s Churchyard for at least 35 years. Mary published a very unusual joint business card with her trade of fan-making at the top and her husband’s trade of turner and handle-maker at the bottom. Esther married Charles Burney and bore 9 children, including the hugely successful novelist Frances Burney."

"Other intriguing business cards in the exhibition include those of the milliner and haberdasher Martha Wheatland; the whalebone seller Elizabeth Bowen; and the wax chandler Hannah Jones. Jones succeeded her husband in 1749 and was still in business over thirty years later when she was supplying candles to Magdalene College in Cambridge and the Duke of Bedford’s London residence."

策展人剑桥大学的历史学家Dr Amy Erickson表示：

“There was nothing unusual about these businesswomen at the time. They were members of trade families and it was normal for women to be in charge. This history has been completely overlooked.”

“These City businesswomen prospered and practiced a range of occupations in a way which would have been inconceivable in the middle of the 20th century. Historians still don’t understand exactly how or why women dropped out of the management of manufacturing and commerce.”

（展览的具体内容参见：http://citywomen.hist.cam.ac.uk/）

此网站最后还列出了相当有参考价值的原始文献、论文论著和网络资源

仅举几例：

· 伦敦同业公会（London's Livery Companies）的线上资源库：https://www.londonroll.org/

· 伦敦地图与地形图London Topographical Society: https://londontopsoc.org/

· Nancy Cox and Karin Dannehl, Dictionary of Traded Goods and Commodities 1550-1820 (Wolverhampton, 2007), British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/traded-goods-dictionary/1550-1820