Abstract
From the perspective of the consumer, the eighteenth century was a period of rapidly widening horizons as goods poured into Britain from an ever-expanding variety of places. This was particularly true of groceries, which lie at the heart of a set of macroeconomic changes often characterized as a commercial revolution. Estimates vary, but the value of imports and exports increased three- or four-fold between the 1660s and 1770s, growth which was closely linked to Britain’s imperial ambitions, most particularly across the Atlantic and in the Far East, but also in west and southern Africa.1 These built on patterns that were already established and well recognized in the mid-seventeenth century. In laying out the operations of the various trading companies, Lewes Roberts’ Merchants Mappe of Commerce (1638) provides a detailed picture of the provenance of a wide range of groceries. Trading with India, Persia, and Arabia, the East India Company brought back a range of spices and drugs as well as textiles, precious stones, and ‘infinite other commodities’. The Turkey Company imported, amongst other things, ‘muscadins of Gandia’ and ‘corance [currants] and oils of Zante, Cephalonia and Morea’; the Muscovy Company brought home honey, pitch, tax, wax, and rosin; and the French Company salt, wines, oils, and almonds. From Spain and Portugal came wine, rosin, olives, oils, sugar, soap, aniseed, liquorice, and so on, whilst Italy supplied oils and rice, as well as acted as a conduit for Eastern produce.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
Bibliography
Beresford, J., ed. The Diary of a Country Parson, 1758–1802 by James Woodforde. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1935.
Bickham, T. ‘Eating the Empire: Intersections of Food, Cookery and Imperialism in Eighteenth-century Britain’. Past and Present 198 (2008): 71–109.
Birkett, M. A Poem on the African Slave Trade. Addressed to Her Own Sex. Dublin, 1792.
Bowen, H. ‘British Conceptions of Global Empire’. Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 26 (1998): 1–27.
Burton, A. ‘Review of The Absent-Minded Imperialists: Empire, Society and Culture in Britain’. Victorian Studies, 47 (2005): 626–628.
—. At the Heart of the Empire: Indians and the Colonial Encounter in Late Victorian Britain. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
Carlton, K. ‘James Cropper and Liverpool’s Contribution to the Anti-slavery Movement’. Transactions of the Historical Society of Lancashire and Cheshire 123 (1972): 57–80.
Chaudhuri, K. The English East India Company: The Study of an Early Joint-Stock Company, 1600–1640. New York: A. M. Kelly, 1965.
Coleridge, S. ‘On the Slave Trade’. The Watchman, 26 March 1796.
Colquhoun, K. Taste. The Story of Britain through Its Cooking. London: Bloomsbury, 2007.
Cowan, B. The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.
Cox, N. and K. Dannehl. Perceptions of Retailing in Early Modern England. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007.
Crafton, W. Short Sketch of the Evidence for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. London, 1792.
Crang, M. Cultural Geography. London: Routledge, 1998.
Davies, K. ‘A Moral Purchase: Femininity, Commerce and Abolition, 1788–1792’. In Women, Writing and the Public Sphere, 1700–1830, edited by E. Eger, C. Grant, C. Ó Gallchoir, and P. Warburton, Penny, 133–159. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Davis, R. ‘English Foreign Trade, 1660–1700’. Economic History Review 7 (1952): 150–166.
Dean, P. and W. Cole. British Economic Growth: 1689–1959, second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962.
Defoe, D. Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain, 1724–27, new edition. London: Penguin, 1971.
—. The Compleat English Tradesman: Directing Him in the Several Parts and Progressions of Trade, 1726, fourth edition: London, 1745.
Edelson, S. ‘The Characters of Commodities. The Representation of South Carolina Rice and Indigo in the Atlantic World’. In The Atlantic Economy during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, edited by P. Coclanis, 344–360. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2005.
Ellis, M. The Coffee House: A Cultural History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004.
Farley, J. The London Art of Cookery and Housekeeper’s Complete Assistant. London: Printed by John Barker, for James Scatcherd, 1800.
Glasse, H. The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy by a Lady. London, 1769.
Goodman, J. Tobacco in History: The Cultures of Dependence. London: Routledge, 1993.
Hall, K. ‘Culinary Spaces, Colonial Spaces: The Gendering of Sugar in the Seventeenth Century’. In Feminist Readings of Early-Modern Culture. Emerging Subjects, edited by V. Traub, M. Kaplan, and D. Callaghan, 168–190. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Harley, C. ‘Trade: Discovery, Mercantilism and Technology’. In The Cambridge Economic History of Britain, Vol. 1: Industrialisation, 1700–1860, edited by R. Floud and P. Johnson, 175–203. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Harris, B. “American Idols”: Empire, War and the Middling Ranks in Mideighteenth-century Britain’. Past and Present 150, no. 1 (1996): 111–141.
Houghton, J. Husbandry and Trade Improv’d: Being a Collection of Many Valuable Materials Relating to Corn, Cattle, Coals, Hops, Wool, & C. London: Woodman and Lyon, 1727–1728.
King, S. and G. Timmins. Making Sense of the Industrial Revolution: English Economy and Society 1700–1850. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001.
MacKenzie, J. ‘Comfort and Conviction: A Response to Bernard Porter’. The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 36 (2008): 659–668.
—. Imperialism and Popular Culture. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987.
Midgeley, C. Feminism and Empire. Women Activists in Imperial Britain, 1790–1865. London: Routledge, 2007.
Mintz, S. Sweetness and Power. The Place of Sugar in Modern History. London: Penguin Books, 1985.
Porter, B. The Absent-Minded Imperialists: Empire, Society and Culture in Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
—. ‘Further Thoughts on Imperial Absent-mindedness’. The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 36 (2008): 101–117.
Rappaport, E. ‘Packaging China. Foreign Articles and Dangerous Tastes in the Mid-Victorian Tea Party’. In The Making of the Consumer: Knowledge, Power and Identity in the Modern World, edited by F. Trentman, 125–146. London: Berg, 2006.
Roberts, L. Merchant’s Mappe of Commerce. London, 1638.
Said, E. Culture and Imperialism, London: Vintage Books, 1993.
Smith, W. Consumption and the Making of Respectability, 1600–1800. London: Routledge, 2002.
Stobart, J. Sugar and Spice: Grocers and Groceries in Provincial England, c.1650–1830. Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming.
Walvin, J. Fruits of Empire: Exotic Produce and British Taste, 1660–1800. New York: New York University Press, 1997.
Wilson, K. Sense of the People: Politics, Culture and Imperialism in England, 1715– 1785. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
W.M. The Compleat Cook. London: Printed for J.G. for Nath. Brook at the Angel in Cornhill, 1663.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2013 Jon Stobart
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Stobart, J. (2013). An Empire of Goods? Groceries in Eighteenth-Century England. In: Umemura, M., Fujioka, R. (eds) Comparative Responses to Globalization. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137263636_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137263636_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-44265-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-26363-6
eBook Packages: Palgrave Business & Management CollectionBusiness and Management (R0)