A Woman's Worth: A Case Study of Capital Accumulation in Early Modern England

A Woman's Worth: A Case Study of Capital Accumulation in Early Modern England Pamela Sharpe Upon hisfirstvisit to Mr Moss, the colonel, then a bachelor, had been liberated by the generosity of his aunt; on the second mishap, little Becky, with the greatest spirit and kindness had borrowed a sum of money from Lord Southdown, and had coaxed her husband's creditor (who was her shawl, velvet gown, lace pocket-handkerchief, trinket and gimcrack purveyor, indeed) to take a portion of the sum claimed, and Rawdon's promissory notefor the remainder. Thackeray wrote on the eve of what has been termed 'the age of capital', whe the effects of industrialisation were beginning to bring a maturity to the English economy. Pecuniary makeshifts have a certain timeless ring but with increasing scholarship on the importance of credit in developing economies such small-scale monetary interactions achieve a new importance. Yet, precisely because many of the financial dealings of past individuals were embedded within networks of credit, they are extremely difficult to reconstruct. But, the 'worth' of m e n and women was of inestimable importance in early modern society. This chapter W. Thackeray, Vanity Fair (1847-8, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983 edn 174 Pamela Sharpe considers one woman's role in accumulating capital within a society undergoing enormous transformation. W e are aware ofthe many legal restrictions surrounding women's property - these have n o w been considered from several angles in a variety of scholarly work. In most respects, they suggest that women's legal access to property was more circumscribed in the English context than elsewhere in Europe during the early modern period. Yet singlewomen, widows and some married women could and did hold and increase their o w n property. As A m a n d a Capern shows in this journal, w o m e n had an active sense of themselves as properly owners and perhaps, as stewards ofproperty that they did not actually own. Paradoxically given the c o m m o n law restrictions on the property holding ofmarried women, it was in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that England became the most dynamic economic power in Europe . What were the contributions of w o m e n to the financial revolution and the period of early industrialisation? Considerable amounts of recent research have examined 4 women's role in consumption and expenditure in this time period. The purchase of clothes, luxury furnishings and the like actually redefined trade in a feminine mode by expanding the fashion trades. While women's consumption undoubtedly stimulated many areas of the economy, w e should not allow this to deflect from their other roles as traders w h o supplied the goods of the expanding retail trades, and as brokers in all types of economic affairs. The existing history of w o m e n in early industrialisation has concerned their role as the major workforce of the manufacturing areas. But recently increasing attention is being paid to their role as entrepreneurs and investors. A n eminent example is Hester Pinney (1658-1740), whose life and economic Two pre-eminent examples are A. L. Erickson, Women and Property in Early Modem England (London: Routledge, 1993) and S. Staves, Married Women's Separate Propert 3 in England (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1990). For a recent view see M. Daunton, Progress and Poverty: an Economic and Social Hist 4 ofBritain 1700-1850 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). S. Pennell, 'Consumption and Consumerism in Early Modem England' HistoricalJourna 5 42:2, (1999), 549-64 summarises some ofthis literature. For example, M. Berg, 'Women's Property in the Industrial Revolution' Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 24, (1993), 233-50; P. Lane, 'Women, Property and Inheri Wealth Creation and Income Generation in Small English Towns, 1750-1835' in J . Stobart and A. Owens, eds, Urban Fortunes: Property, Inheritance and the Town 1700-19 (Ashgate, Aldershot: 2000). A Case Study of Capital Accumulation in Early Modern England 175 dealings I have previously described, concentrating on the relationship betwee economic factors and non-marriage in her life story. In this article, I return to the sources about the Pinney family to consider...