Reading the Regency

A Nation of Shopkeepers

Napoleon once dismissed England as a "Nation of Shopkeepers", because he thought the population were more interested in business than preparing their country for war with France. He believed that by banning all trade between France and England, his enemy would suffer and he would triumph. Sadly, it didn't work out for him.

Shopping was a big part of everyday life, for all levels of society. Walking down one of the main commercial streets in Regency London wouldn't have been that much different than walking through any modern British town. There were clothes shops, jewellers, fast-food outlets and other forms of retail therapy, even if some of the names of those businesses might now be unfamiliar to us.

Types of Shop

"And we mean to treat you all,'' added Lydia; "but you must lend us the money, for we have just spent ours at the shop out there.''
[Chapter 39, Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen]

The general word that described most retail premises was Shop. In England, the word "store" meant a place to store things, so you might find a coal store, or a meat store, where they stored goods in bulk, but you didn't generally buy things from a store. Stores were similar to our modern day warehouses.

In the Regency period, a Warehouse was literally a house that offered "wares" for sale. Although a few, like the Italian Corset Warehouse on Oxford Street, aimed their advertising towards the Nobility, many others boasted about their cheap prices to attract customers, such as this example:

"FASHIONABLE CLOTHES WAREHOUSE, 421 Strand, near Bedford Street. John Knight respectfully informs the public, he supplies them with clothes of all kinds on the most speedy, just and advantageous terms.
Large variety of Coats, waistcoats and breeches, &c., ready made, Leather Breeches fit for present use or well made to measure and cheap. Suit of clothes at seven hours notice."
[The Times, 20th June 1805]

So when Mrs Bennet in "Pride and Prejudice" says: "tell my dear Lydia, not to give any directions about her clothes till she has seen me, for she does not know which are the best warehouses..." she isn't thinking of buying items wholesale from a merchant, but from a large shop offering the variety of different items Lydia would need for her new married life.

Warehouses might have attracted the middle classes, and the gentry who were watching their budget, but they would have been less interesting to the most wealthy shoppers in London, who liked to boast about the money they spent and would have only patronised the most fashionable and exclusive establishments and would have never bought clothes that were ready made.

Another word for a shop was Magazine, which came from the French for "a shop where goods are kept for sale"; while larger items, like furniture, were exhibited in a Ware-room, or Showroom. In 1795 Josiah Wedgewood, the potter, opened a showroom to sell his china pieces. The room, on St James' Square, became a fashionable place for ladies to meet up and inspect the merchandise.

Supermarkets as we know them today were unheard of in Regency England, so shoppers would have had to go to many individual shops or market stalls to buy everything they needed; one for meat, another for vegetables, etc. Early 19th century shops looked very much like small shops today - with a front door and a large window for displaying goods. Or sometimes a door in the middle and two smaller windows either side. The shopkeepers lived in rooms at the back, and above.

Outside London, the smaller towns or large villages might only have one of each type of business, and they would be limited to the butchers, bakers, grocers and other things that people bought regularly. Anyone looking for specialist items, like wigs or riding habits, might have to travel to their nearest large city, or order something to be sent through the post.