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Sources of supply
The record of supplies and payments may be intermittent, but it covers the whole period of Clay's independent business life from 1742 to 1774.[28] Like Clay, we can most conveniently divide the suppliers into London and country, dealing first with the latter.
The country suppliers, country 'chapmen' as Clay called them although few if any were travellers, were chiefly local men, although there are a few examples of Clay dealing with traders as far away as Gloucestershire and Cheshire. Obviously, paper was the most important constituent of Clay's stock, and his sources indicate the extent to which papermaking had become a native industry by the middle of the eighteenth century. Indeed, almost all of the records of paper buying are from English mills.
Clay's chief supplier was Robert Allen of Boughton Mill, near Northampton. Boughton Mill was ancient, but had first been used for papermaking as recently as 1717, when it was taken over by one Mr. Allen (VCH Northamts, IV, 79). The Robert Allen with whom Clay dealt in the early 1740s was probably this man's son, for he did not die until 1797.[29] By that time his own son, Joseph, was in charge of the mill, as he had been since at least 1786.[30] In the early 1740s, when the records appear to be complete, Clay bought consignments of paper about once a month, and sometimes more frequently. In 1744, for example, there were 15 different transactions. Most were small, averaging about £2, but over the years it represented a substantial trade. Between January 1743 and March 1745, for example, Clay spent a total of £62.16s.3d. on Allen's paper.
A typical single purchase is that of 7 December 1743:
| 1 Rm. Large} Brown | 5 | 0 | |
| 8 Rm. F [olio]} | 18 | 0 | |
| 2 Rm. White Cap | 9 | 0 | |
| 2 Rm. D. F [olio] | 6 | 6 | |
| 1 Rm. Blew Cap | 4 | 6 | |
| -------- | |||
| 2 | 3 | 0 | |
| -------- |
Jones was, in fact, Clay's second most important country supplier after Allen. He was at North Newington throughout Clay's independent career.[32] In 1746 alone Clay paid him a total of £25.10s.3d.. Primarily he supplied Clay with wrapping paper, often in large quantities, including, for example, 32 reams between 17 and 24 September 1746. He did supply some writing paper, but for this Clay generally relied on Allen. Clay's other provincial paper suppliers, all on a much smaller scale, included Thomas Ashby, of Brandon Mill, at Ryton, near Coventry (Shorter, p. 242); Mary and John Oram, stationers in Coventry who owned Beoley Mills in Worcestershire in the 1760s;[33] and John Durham, of Winchombe in Gloucestershire.
Durham may not have been a papermaker,[34] but rather a wholesale stationer. Clay dealt with him on a number of occasions; the most elaborate series of recorded transactions was in 1749-50, when Clay received parcels with unspecified contents to a total value of £110.18s.9d. The real explanation for Clay's dealings with Durham, however, is probably to be found in the fact that he supplied him with bottles of Cheltenham Water to which he had easy access in Gloucestershire. One supplier who was certainly a wholesale stationer was Dickinson Boys, of Louth, in Lincolnshire. Boys was in business from 1719 to 1767, and transformed the little stationer's shop which he had inherited from his uncle into a large and prosperous business with wide regional, and even national, contacts.[35] Clay bought pocket books from him as well as sheets of paper and also, on one occasion, binding supplies. Another supplier of pocket books, and probably of binding materials, was John Skoopholme, a bookbinder in Bristol, with whom Clay was dealing in 1749 and 1750.
For books, Clay dealt with the London booksellers, as will be discussed below, but, apart from the schoolbooks at Daventry, and part books and magazines, his book trade was chiefly in chapbooks and ballads. These were the largest category of books published in the provinces, and Clay followed the usual pattern in using easily accessible local sources. His chief suppliers were in Coventry: Thomas Luckman, owner of The Coventry Mercury who
Clay's dealings with provincial booksellers were very few. From John Baskerville, the Birmingham printer, he bought a copy of his Prayer Book (in 1760), and great Folio Bible (1763). He also dealt with Robert Martin and Thomas Warren of Birmingham, but each on one occasion only, in 1771 and 1761 respectively. The only other supplier of books, or rather of a single book in 1750, was Thomas Merrill of the famous Cambridge bookselling firm (Plomer, pp. 17-18, 164, 257, 168-169).
Clay went further afield in buying the miscellaneous supplies which were integral to his trade. We have already noted that Durham supplied Cheltenham Water, but the chief supplier of medicine who appears in the country accounts was Henry Smith of Oundle. Clay bought 11 dozen bottles of 'Tincture' from him between 1743 and 1752. Another tradesman in Oundle, Henry Austin, whom Clay describes as a hatter, supplied medicine between 1761 and 1768, and in 1771-73 John Leeming of Coventry appears several times in the accounts for the same reason. Other supplies came from Heatley Noble of Birmingham (pens, pen cases, ink, ink pots, sealing wax, and string, in 1757); Robert Taylor of Nantwich in Cheshire (quills on several occasions, 1755-61); Henry Walter of Birmingham ('7 Vellum Skins for Binding', 1764); and Edward Laxton of Peterborough, and James Thompson, whose place of residence is not given (both quills, 1742-76).
Although the records of purchases may be incomplete the general pattern of provincial purchasing is clear. Clay bought most of his paper direct from nearby mills, using one supplier, Allen, chiefly for writing paper, and another, Jones, chiefly for wrapping paper. This was supplemented with paper and blank books from wholesale stationers like Boys and the Orams. He bought ballads and chapbooks direct from the printers, and a very few
The London accounts are rather less specific than those with the country suppliers. Clay tended to record merely that he had bought and paid for a number of parcels, without noting their contents. In fact, most of the London tradesmen with whom he dealt appear to have been wholesale stationers, like John Loveday of Fish Street Hill,[39] and others. He also bought some medicine from London suppliers, since, of course, patent medicines could only be bought from the patentees or their assigns; his medicine suppliers included How and Masterman of Gracechurch Street, and Francis Newbery. Newbery is particularly interesting in this respect. He was the son of John, the original patentee of Dr. James's Fever Powder (see note 26), and published many children's books and chapbooks. Significantly, Clay never seems to have bought books from him, for he was publishing precisely the kind of books which were available more easily from country printers like Cheney and Bailye (Maxted, p. 161; Plomer, Bushnell, and Dix, p. 178).
The bookseller with whom Clay dealt most frequently over the years was James Hodges, one of the most distinguished members of the London trade. He was Clerk of the City of London, and was knighted when he presented an Address to George II in 1758 (Plomer, etc., pp. 127-128). He was a publisher of practical books of all kinds, on crafts, science, and arts, which proved to be very popular. He also, however, supplied Clay with books published by others as well as his own, and seems to have acted, in effect, as Clay's London agent. Clay did have direct dealings with some other London booksellers, including James Buckland (from 1756), Thomas Payne (from 1759), and Richard Baldwin (from 1763). Indeed, the general impression is that these dealings increased substantially over the years, and that Clay began to buy more books from the middle of his career onwards. This is, to some extent, confirmed by the records of sales at all the shops.
Clay also dealt directly with the publishers of some of the magazines which were important to the trade of any provincial booksellers. He dealt with Edward Cave, the founder of The Gentleman's Magazine (from 1742); John Wheble, the publisher of The Lady's Magazine (from 1771); and others. In general, however, Clay's dealings with London were less important to the maintenance of his stock than his dealings with country tradesmen. There were problems of distance, cost, and means of payment. Above all, there was the fact that the local paper mills could supply, cheaply, the basic constituent of his stock, and this needed only a little supplementation from the
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