View source for Cloth merchant

{{short description|One who sells cloth}}
{{One source|date=January 2023}}
[[File:Brooklyn Museum - Cloth Merchant's Shop - Basarat.jpg|thumb|right|220px|''Cloth Merchant's Shop'', [[Brooklyn Museum]], depicts an establishment in [[India]].]]

In the [[Middle Ages]] or 16th and 17th centuries, a '''cloth merchant''' was one who owned or ran a [[cloth]] (often [[wool]]) manufacturing or wholesale import or export business.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/cloth-merchant|title=Cloth merchant|website=collinsdictionary.com|publisher=collins Dictionary|access-date=29 January 2023}}</ref> A cloth merchant might additionally own a number of '''[[draper]]'s''' shops. Cloth was extremely expensive and cloth merchants were often very wealthy. A number of Europe's leading banking dynasties such as [[House of Medici|Medici]] and [[Berenberg family|Berenberg]] built their original fortunes as cloth merchants.

In England, cloth merchants might be members of one of the important [[guild|trade guilds]], such as the [[Worshipful Company of Drapers]].

Alternative names are '''clothier''', which tended to refer more to someone engaged in [[cloth production|production]] and the sale of cloth, whereas a cloth merchant would be more concerned with distribution, including overseas trade, or '''haberdasher''', who were merchants in sewn and fine fabrics (e.g. silk) and in London, members of the [[Haberdashers' Company]].

The largely obsolete term '''merchant taylor''' also describes a business person who trades in textiles, and initially a tailor who keeps and sells materials for the garments which he makes. In England, the term is best known in the context of the [[Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors]], one of the [[livery company|livery companies]] of the [[City of London]], nowadays a charitable institution best known for the Merchant Taylors' schools – the Company preserves the ancient spelling "taylor" in its name.

==Notable cloth merchants==
* [[Robert Aske (merchant)|Alderman Robert Aske]]
* [[Sir William Gardiner, 1st Baronet|Sir William Gardiner]]
* [[Benjamin Henshawe]], (1585–1631)
* [[Baptist Hicks, 1st Viscount Campden|Baptist Hicks]], (1551–1629)
* [[Robert Jousie]]
* [[John Kendrick (cloth merchant)|John Kendrick]]
* [[Henry Machyn]], diarist
* [[Jack O'Newbury]]
* [[William Paterson (banker)|William Paterson]]
* [[Thomas Spring of Lavenham]]
* [[Thomas White (merchant)|Sir Thomas White]]

==See also==
* [[Clothing industry]]
* [[Textile industry]]
* [[Cloth hall]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{sewing}}
{{Clothing}}

[[Category:Cloth merchants| 01]]
[[Category:Clothing industry]]
[[Category:Sales occupations]]
[[Category:Textile industry]]


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