YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED
With our experts Dr Sophie Kay & Dr Simon Wills
Tracing an early 19th century ‘tea dealer’
QThinking of Dr Sophie Kay’s encouragement to us all to study the Negative Space, when researching our ancestors’ lives, brings me to my request. Thinking along the lines of filling in gaps I have one big one of 25 years.
My great-great-grandfather, James Mcdowall, was born around 1800/2 in Scotland but nothing is known of him until 1825. He is living in Derby and gives his occupation as a tea dealer.
I came across a story that said Scottish farmers would send their youngest son out into the country with enough money to buy tea. Then they would visit farms and villages selling tea and many of them made a lot of money. Could this be my James? The problem is I can’t prove whether the story is true. The source ‘Roots Chat’ couldn’t help, and I have tried a few archives but no luck. I was wondering if you could help. Andy Mcdowal
AYour ancestor James MCDOWALL casts up a classic challenge for any genealogist: his migratory habits. Ancestors who insist on moving around, particularly those travelling across national borders, are often more complex to identify than those who remain in one place.
Understanding James’ 1825 occupation of ‘tea dealer’ might help you identify him elsewhere, but approach this with caution owing to the potential for occupational change, and the fact that this title could be interpreted in a number of ways.
Try trade directories
Strictly speaking, a tea dealer usually had a fixed premises; if so you may be able to locate them in trade directories of the period. Explore the free collections of Scottish Directories at the National Library of Scotland (https:// digital.nls.uk/directories/) and the England and Wales directories provided by the University of Leicester (https://specialcollections.le.ac.uk/digital/collection/ p16445coll4) to see if there is any evidence in England or Scotland for James running such a shop.
Consider other terms for the job
However you may encounter other uses of the term ‘dealer’. In some contexts it might denote a travelling salesman: look out for related occupations such as chapman, packman, pedlar or hawker. Henry Mayhew, in his famous work London Labour and the London Poor, notes the dominance of Scottish chapmen and pedlars (selling a range of wares, not exclusively tea) in the early 19th century, claiming a particular prevalence of men from Lanarkshire and Edinburgh in the trade, and such trading happened outside London too.
Learn about his life as a whole
Rather than looking at one record in isolation, I’d advise learning as much as you can about James’ life as a whole. Use his occupation to ascertain his likely socio-economic status: other records may well reveal a pattern of streettrading employment, which might help you interpret the
‘tea dealer’ description, and potentially pick him out from namesake candidates if performing directed searches in particular locations later on.
Read up on the wider history of the trade
Alas, James’ 1825 occupation of ‘tea dealer’ doesn’t hint at any specific place of origin in Scotland. The history of Scotland’s relationship with the tea trade is a fascinating one, but leaves a broad scope for potential jobs in tea sales, if indeed this was how James started out.
Prior to 1784, considerable import duties on tea gave rise to a thriving network of tea-smuggling, on both the east and west coasts of Scotland. Once in the country, contraband tea was distributed further afield through networks of sale via gathering places such as alehouses, as well as sales via pack-men on foot or horseback. Indeed these pub-based retail practices are associated with the term ‘chapman’s law’, which the Scottish National Dictionary defines as, ‘a practice whereby a publican allows a salesman or any other person(s) to transact business in his premises without charge but the company is expected to buy drink.’ Packmen frequently dealt in a range of items and similar sales networks operated for legal goods too.
Reflections on the impact of Acts
In an attempt to quell smuggling, the 1784 Commutation Act massively reduced the duties payable on imported tea, although occasional smuggling cases reported in newspapers indicate that the practice was not eradicated entirely. Many new tea dealerships appeared in Scotland post-1784; these traders had to send agents to London to purchase legallyimported tea. After the tea was brought to Scotland, dealers might also employ travelling salesmen to peddle their wares further afield. Regulatory changes in 1834 made Glasgow an ‘enumerated port’, permitting legal imports of tea directly into Scotland.
So your Scottish ancestor James – born in the early 1800s – was a tea dealer in Derby, England during that pre-1834 period when there’s lots of dynamic change happening in the industry and a rapidly growing consumption of tea by the working classes. Did James get into this line of work from prior experience in Scotland – and, if so, was it as a fixedpremises retailer, a sales agent, or a travelling salesman?
Study his immediate family
In addition to following up trade directories and newspapers for occupational evidence for James, I would advise carrying out an in-depth study of James’s immediate family members. We call it family history for a reason – not individual history! – because it’s the connections between people which serve us with those vital evidence links. I suspect this is your best possibility of identifying James’ birth family and his Scottish roots.
James’ appearance in the 1841 Census shows the family near Glasgow and the children’s birth locations speak to the family’s move from England to Scotland sometime in the late 1820s. Acquire as much information as you possibly can by researching the entire family group and be vigilant for any connections to MCDOWELLS (or surname variants) whom you don’t recognise; these may yield clues about the wider family.
Learn how to use the ‘timebinding’ method
Pushing an ancestral line back beyond the era of civil registration and the ‘modern census’, as you’re attempting with James, benefits from as detailed a knowledge of the individual as possible. Andrew Todd’s excellent book, Family History Nuts and Bolts, describes the timebinding method, in which historical evidence from someone’s later life may yield details of traceable leads (e.g. names of parents or members of the wider family) which allow you to break through that early-19th-century barrier. Prepare for an involved hunt, but I suspect this may help with your research problem – and will undoubtedly generate other fascinating discoveries along the way!