1 gen 1663 anni - grocer

Descrizione:

The traditional grocer was a tradesman who dealt in spices, sugar, dried fruits and other items of domestic consumption. ‘Grocer’ was not a prominent occupation in the fourteenth century, unlike ‘mercer’ and ‘spicer’, and I find no evidence in Yorkshire that it gave rise to a surname. It is true that there are early references to grocers, for example, 1403 <i>Ricardus Beche, grocer</i>, York (SS96/108); 1504 <i>John Lupton, Ledes grocer</i> (YRS6/107) but such men are likely to have been wholesalers or ‘engrossers’, not retailers: <i>c</i>.1450 <i>no groser of fysche awe to cut hys awn fysche be hym selffe</i>, Malton (SS85/63). This meaning of the word was in general use for several centuries: in 1535 the corn that fed the people of York was provided by <i>byers and engrossers</i>, and they were ordered not to sell any of their grain until the city had been <i>fully servyd</i> (YRS106/173). In some cases the early uses of ‘grosser’ can be seen to have that meaning; in 1585, Edward Osborne of London informed the Earl of Shrewsbury that nutmeg was sold <i>unto the grosers which take towe or thre houndereth ponds wourthe at a tyme </i>(Sh14). We can be sure though that John Hubye of Selby, <i>grosser</i>, who died in 1663, was more like a grocer in the modern sense, since his inventory lists the scores of items that were then in his shop. They include numerous spices, brimstone, turpentine, raisins, hops, treacle and saffron, as well as a variety of other goods more usually associated with a haberdasher (YRS47/84-5).

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