Trade History

[Guest jamesp]

Does anyone know anything about Sheffield's market trade history and where it used to take place other than the city (if it did that is). Ive recently moved to the area and im interested in area in which the city traded in outside the centre. Im aware of the steel trade that used to occur but im more interested in the food side of the town and where it was grown etc and how it was transferred to the centre and Castle square (where I have been told the market has always been in one form or another)

thanks

[dunsbyowl1867]

This may help!

http://www.sheffield.gov.uk/business-economy/markets/history-and-visits

Does anyone know anything about Sheffield's market trade history and where it used to take place other than the city (if it did that is). Ive recently moved to the area and im interested in area in which the city traded in outside the centre. Im aware of the steel trade that used to occur but im more interested in the food side of the town and where it was grown etc and how it was transferred to the centre and Castle square (where I have been told the market has always been in one form or another)

thanks

[Guest Gramps]

Welcome to the forum James.

Until the 19th. century when the council bought the rights to the markets in Sheffield they were entirely in the hands of the Lord of the Manor. In medieval times there were stict rules for producers bringing stuff for sale to the market and anyone found 'forestalling' faced a hefty penalty as the Lord of the Manor extracted a fee from traders attending the market.

Below is an extract from R E Leader's book Sheffield in the 18th. Century, published in 1905, which describes the market as it existed shortly before the first Market Hall was erected, as well as a plan of the market. The site is now mainly occupied by the Primark clothing store

"The markets, as they existed from the re-building in 1786 to 1851, when the Norfolk Market Hall was opened, have been frequently described, and are remembered by so many of our older townsfolk, that it is hardly necessary to dwell on them here. What, as less known, is of greater interest is to endeavour to recall the conditions which existed prior to the earlier date.

Details of the negotiations between the leading inhabitants and the Earl of Surrey, which led to an Act of Parliament being obtained in 1784 for the improvement of the markets, are in existence. Amid a multitude of proposals for the best way of utilising the space, they make clear the topography of the old Market Place, and throw much light on the manner in which it was occupied. The accompanying plan (page 164) will give the reader a far better idea of the curiously irregular arrangement of the old market buildings and the surrounding streets than can be obtained from any verbal description. The lines of the numerous market tenements, and of King Street and the Fruit Market, show a survival of the happy-golucky indifference of the old days to symmetry, and of the manner in which houses were placed anyhow, according to the fancy of the builders and the long-suffering of their neighbours.

The Market Cross stood at the top, not in the centre, but somewhat nearer to Change Alley than to King Street, and

below it the wooden sheds or stalls of the butchers ran, some down, then others across. As Wills says:

The shambles, most dismal, were then made of wood,

The sheds of the stalls, almost closing amain,

Form'd an archway for customers out of the rain;

Down the centre a channel the filth to convey;

And some lighted candles, almost at midday.

The more permanent erections, of all shapes and sizes—sale- shops, workshops, houses, warehouses, brew-houses, and what not occurred below them in the most promiscuous manner, now receding, now projecting, and occasionally separated by narrow passages. One block, the shop of Mr. Robert Lambert, grocer, at the north-west corner of King Street, stood boldly detached, with thoroughfares all round. Below it, the buildings on both sides of the present Shambles area trended east by north, making the bottom end of Pudding Lane (King Street) very narrow where it joined Bull Stake (Old Haymarket), while on the other (now Fitzalan Square) side, the buildings receded so far as to leave an open space used as the Swine Market, and opposite to this (afterwards Market Street) stood the gruesome slaughter-houses—"a nuisance to all that pass'd by the place."

The ownership was not less mixed and complicated than the planning. To the Town Trustees belonged the whimsically shaped holding, V., which, with frontages to the Swine Market on the one hand, and to King Street on the other, meandered through the Town Burgesses' plots, numbered III. and IV. on the plan. Then Robert Lambert held the freehold of I., and of a block (II.) completely wedged in, except for one small corner, by the buildings of the Earl of Surrey, who owned all not above specified. The claims of four owners had thus to be reckoned with before any harmonious improvement could be carried out. Eventually, by exchange or purchase, the whole came into the Earl's hands.

Various schedules were prepared showing the numbers of persons who had shops, houses, stalls fixed, and standings removable in the Market. It is not always possible to harmonise the figures in the different statements, nor is it perhaps of much consequence. What is of interest is the various avocations of their occupiers. Thus the tenants of houses included dyers, coopers, fruiterers, hardwaremen, hatters, gardeners, breeches-makers, and flax-dressers. There is rmention, too, of an inn called " The Coach and Six," on the site of which it was proposed to build corner shops. Stalls and standings were occupied, in addition to the trades already mentioned, by pelt-mongers, shoemakers, tanners, hucksters, hosiers, hatters, fishmongers, staymakers, one bookseller, and, of course, butchers. Seventy-six stalls are enumerated as standing in the streets adjoining the Markets, and High Street, up to the Church Gates, was lined with the stalls of vendors of many of the commodities above specified, but more especially of earthenware, interspersed with old shoes, gingerbread, cheese, and bacon. There stood, too, carts with fruit and garden-stuff. Each tradesman had his position exactly defined. Thus there were three "before the front of Mr. Bayley's house," four in front of Mr. Wreaks's, and so on.

These, with the addition of farmers' wives, with their baskets of butter and eggs, round the Market Cross, indicate the state of things on market days. At the fairs there were, in addition, 28 cheesemongers and farmers with cheese, 60 clothiers, linen-drapers, sellers of gingerbread; toys and hardware "too numerous to mention." One list has been preserved which indicates the whole of the salesmen in the town occupying the property of the Lord of the Manor, and it is worth quoting. Shops in the Shambles, 38; stalls in the Market, movable, 45; shops in different parts of the town, 5; stalls in the public streets, 7; shops under their dwelling-houses (in High Street, Fargate, Burgess Street, Townhead Cross, etc.), 13; total, 108.

There is a notion that the market arrangements above described had come into vogue as an improvement on the earlier state of things existing up to about the middle of the century. It has been asserted that prior to that time the parish stocks (afterwards removed to the Church Gates), and the pillory, had been contiguous to the Market Cross, which is said to have been rebuilt in 1568, and again in 1741 about the time when the Townhead Cross was taken down. This, however, is tradition rather than history, and all we can say with certainty is that any earlier change in the markets must have taken place before 1736, because Gosling's plan shows the state of things which continued until 1786 as already in existence in that year. We are not, however, wholly without glimpses of more ancient trading incidents. Thus, in 1578, the town miller was punished heavily by the Jury of the Sembly Quest for using a toll-dish of more generous dimensions than was allowed by ancient'custom, and so taking an undue share of the corn brought to him to grind; and about the same period Gilbert, Earl of Shrewsbury, although enforcing resolutely the privilege of requiring his tenants to have their corn ground at the lord's mill, showed himself in other

respects to be an enlightened free trader; for, in 1608, he issued this edict:

"Whereas the town of Sheffeld consisteth of handicraftsmen in greate numbers who have no means to make their provision but only in the markett, and that the cuntrie thereaboutes affoardeth not sufficient stoare of white meates, chiefly butter and cheese to serve that towne, and that there is one Elizabeth Heywood, of Sheffeld, widowe, an honest substanciall woman, who resoarteth to the toune of Ashbourne, and diverse other markettes where there is extraordinary quantities of those kind of victualles by reason of the fertilitie and goodness of the soile adjoyninge; and there buyinge such stoare of butter and cheese as shee is able, bringeth the same to Sheffeld, where she uttereth them, whereby she benefitteth both the places where she buyeth them, and likewise the saide Toune of Sheffeld, where she uttereth them. And yet nevertheles is troubled by certeyne promoters who rather seeke their owne benefitt than any good to the cuntrie. I have thought good att the said widowe's request, hereby to signifie to the better sort that my opinion is shee doethe no harme, but much good in this her soe doinge, and doe wish that shee might not bee anie more causlesly troubled as heretofore shee hath beene. " Given at Sheffeld lodge this fourteenth daie of February,

"G1LL. SHREWSBURY"

If the markets had undergone beneficial change before the middle of the century, they were assuredly fully ripe for further extension and amelioration in 1784. The Shambles (using the word, as was and is the Sheffield custom, in its original sense of a place not for killing, but as the stalls where meat is exposed for sale) were swept away, along with the slaughter-houses, which were relegated to Lady's Bridge, while the cattle and swine were sent to the Wicker. All the old tenements were removed, the streets were widened and lheir frontages straightened, and there arose the buildings so many of us remember as existing prior to the erection, in 1855, of the Shambles of to-day. "

Plan of Market in 1784

KEY 1O PLAN OF MARKET PLACE IN 1784

I. and II. Robert Lambert's Freehold.

III. and IV. Church Burgesses' Freehold.

V. Town Burgesses' Freehold.

All the remainder, Earl of Surrey's Freehold. Tenants:—

1. Ann Genn. 17 William Jeeves.

1A.Joseph Hancock. 19. Andrew Taylor.

2. Robert Swann. 20. Thomas Longden, or Robert

3. Joseph Vickers. Lambert.

4. John Bingley. 21. Isaac Birks, or Robert Lambert.

5, 6, 10, 14, 28. Empty. 22. Isaac Birks, Brewhouse

7. William Woolmer. 23. Joshua Roberts or Wm Wright

8. John Barber. 24. Samuel Goodlad

9. Late Hannah Firth's (Grocer) 25. William Champion

Warehouse. . 26. Geo. Swan and Alex. Smith or

11. John Hardy. Jos. Matthewman and Wm. Burton.

12 and 18. Peter Cockayne.

13 John Swinden and John Wilson 27. Joseph Machin

15. William Walmsley. 29. William Wiley.

16 Dan White, or Thomas Hirst. 30. Robert Lambert, Grocer.

Other tenants, sites not indicated: George France, Joseph Mower, - Gregory.

N.B. - Alternative names represent changes in tenancy, or perhaps tenant and owner.

[SteveHB]

A bit more about Market Place and the Shambles here

[vox]

I wouldn't have expected anything less from you Gramps.

Good work Sir.

[Guest jamesp]

Thanks for your help, very informative