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Smuggling Silks into Eighteenth-Century Britain: Geography, Perpetrators, and Consumers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2016

William Farrell
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Abstract

As part of protectionist policy in eighteenth-century Britain, imported silks were banned from being sold. Although it is known that bans on imported textiles were widely broken, there have been few systematic studies of the contraband trade in silks. Using customs' records, this article shows how smuggling supplied the demand for imported consumer goods. The illegal trade in silk was diverse, bringing in a variety of products from Asia and Europe. The evidence supports a market segmentation analysis of the different products and their consumers. The trade with Asia supplied “populuxe goods” in the form of handkerchiefs that appealed to a broad, middling customer base. These were brought into the country by the East India Company's trading network. By contrast, continental Europe provided contraband for the high-fashion market. These silks were distributed in more informal and personal ways—travelers and diplomats being the main offenders. The official response to these black markets differed, with silks from Europe posing particular problems for enforcement. Finally, this article provides a reassessment of the transnational influences—specifically the relative importance of Asia and Europe—on production and consumption of consumer goods in Britain.

Keywords

Smugglingconsumptionsilkeighteenth centuryBritainblack marketconsumerFranceIndiafashiontrade
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 2 , April 2016 , pp. 268 - 294
Copyright
Copyright © The North American Conference on British Studies 2016 

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References

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38 In 1770, from a total of 2,491 pieces, 1,318 pieces of silk were seized in London; in 1780, 1,243 pieces were seized in London from a total of 1,993 pieces.

39 Bowen, “‘So Alarming an Evil,’” 18.

40 I used Gale's digitized version of the Burney Collection of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century newspapers.

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42 For example, the sale at Hastings, Public Advertiser, 31 July 1770.

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67 Examples include Thomas Jones, MS04655/017, fol. 83, London Metropolitan Archive (hereafter LMA); James King, William Ward, and John Peck, MS04655/017, fols. 102–3, LMA. See also William Farrell, “The Silk Interest and the Fiscal-Military State,” in The British Fiscal-Military States, 1660–c.1783, ed. Aaron Graham and Patrick A. Walsh (Farnham, forthcoming 2016).

68 The National Archives (hereafter TNA), Customs papers (hereafter CUST) 28/2, fols. 431–32.

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73 TNA, CUST 41/4, fol. 31.

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82 TNA, CUST 29/6, fols. 127–28.

83 TNA, CUST 41/5, fol. 313–17.

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88 Bottrell, “Report from Select Committee on the Silk Trade,” 447.

89 TNA, CUST 28/2, fols. 51–52.

90 TNA, CUST 28/2, fols. 258–59.

91 TNA, CUST 28/2, fol. 391.

92 TNA, CUST 28/2, fol. 423.

93 St. James's Chronicle, 3–5 December 1761.

94 TNA, CUST 28/2, fols. 51–52.

95 TNA, Treasury Papers (hereafter T) 1/449, fols. 112–13; 110–11; T 1/454, fols. 190–92.

96 William Ashworth, Customs and Excise: Trade, Production, and Consumption in England, 1640–1845 (Oxford, 2003), 198–99.

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99 Buck, Dress in Eighteenth-Century England, 34.

100 Public Advertiser, 23 August 1764.

101 TNA, CUST 29/1, “Baggage,” 20 October 1710.

102 TNA, CUST 28/2, fol. 455.

103 TNA, CUST 41/10, fols. 235–38, 240.

104 TNA, CUST 29/1, “Baggage,” 13 December 1718.

105 TNA, CUST 29/1, “Baggage,” 14 July 1737.

106 TNA, T 29/27, fol. 402.

107 Cross, Eighteenth Century Documents, 243.

108 TNA, CUST 29/5, fol. 293

109 Buck, Dress in Eighteenth-Century England, 34.

110 North, “The Physical Manifestation of an Abstraction,” 94–95.

111 Rosemary Sweet, Cities and the Grand Tour: The British in Italy, c.1690–1820 (Cambridge, 2012), chap. 1.

112 Jeremy Black, France and the Grand Tour (Basingstoke, 2003), 18–19, 122–26.

113 Sweet, Cities and the Grand Tour, 18.

114 Quoted in Black, Italy and the Grand Tour, 98.

115 London Evening Post, 1–3 September 1761.

116 “Report of Committee on the Silk Industry” (14 April 1766), 725.

117 Brian Fitzgerald, ed., Correspondence of Emily, Duchess of Leinster (1731–1814) (Dublin, 1949), 1:82, 89, 95. I owe this reference to Ruth Thorpe of Queens' University Belfast.

118 TNA, CUST 28/1, fol. 335.

119 TNA, CUST 41/4, fols. 177–78.

120 London Evening Post, 20–23 February 1773.

121 TNA, CUST 41/7, fol. 43.

122 Quoted in Mary M. Drummond, Villiers, George, Visct. Villiers (1751–1800). History of Parliament Online, accessed 1 September 2013, http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/member/villiers-george-1751-1800.

123 TNA, CUST 41/7, fol. 48.

124 TNA, CUST 41/7, fol. 49.

125 For example, St. James's Chronicle or the British Evening Post (London), 26–28 July 1764. For royal patronage, see Lister, Jenny, “Twenty-Three Samples of Silk: Silks Worn by Queen Charlotte and the Princesses at Royal Birthday Balls, 1791–1794,” Costume 37, no. 1 (January 2003): 51–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

126 Greig, The Beau Monde, chap. 4.

127 Ashworth, Customs and Excise, chap. 17.

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130 Alain Cottereau, “The Fate of Fabriques Collectives in the Industrial World: The Silk Industries of Lyon and London, 1800–1850,” in Sabel and Zeitlin, eds., World of Possibilities, 75–152.

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