Humphrey Beckham
You completed an apprenticeship and became a joiner in your home town of Salisbury, like your brother and father. You lived a long life and died aged 83 in 1672. In the decades and centuries after your death, you became a very famous joiner, appearing in printed histories of Salisbury. This fame was due to a certain style of armchair pioneered by the Beckham joinery workshop, which are still praised today.
Other work attributed to you includes a carved panel of old testament narratives, which is on display in St Thomas’ Church, and the church accounts record you and your relatives doing joined work for the parish.
Your inventoried wealth equalled £190 at the time of your death, so despite your skill you were not tremendously wealthy but had more than enough to get by. Your work clearly demonstrates an acute awareness of Biblical narratives and printed iconography and you channelled this into your craft. Although you married, you died without any surviving children, and your brother’s property on Catherine Street was clearly the site of the family’s workshop. You are remembered through the surviving examples of your joined work.
Nicholas and/or Margaret Woolfe
You married each other some time in the early 1600s. Margaret brought with her substantial property assets from her first marriage and had for some time during her widowhood managed “to her great profit and commodity” the important local inn, the White Hart.
Nicholas, on the other hand, was a cutler by trade who continued to take apprentices in this trade through to his death in 1614.
In around 1604/5, around the date of their marriage, Nicholas opened a playhouse on his home turf Wine Street and he and Margaret ran the playhouse and rented out rooms in the property.
Margaret, it seems from court cases, often handled the financial arrangements, indicating her role as a businesswoman and manager as well as a landlady of various properties.
Nicholas’s will indicates the wider questions of status and legacy that attend on this group: he left substantial benefactions to charities and parishes around Bristol. He also left money for tutoring and musical instruments for his son, thus passing on the chance for cultural as well as financial mobility. Indeed, his son’s guardians included a sometime city mayor, William Yate, attesting to the significance of high social connections.
Nicholas’s will also stipulated that the his charitable bequests would only be paid so long as the Wine Street property continued as a playhouse, indicating the importance of cultural assets beyond financial investments.
However, it might be added that Nicholas was especially tight with money and would not consent to purchase Margaret new dresses; he “carried himself so hard and greedy,” she explains, “even though he were wealthy and of good estate.”
Inventory: Michael Threlkell, hosier, Bristol (1623)
The inventory of the goods and chattels of Michael Threlkelde deceased teakene and prsed the XIIIth day of Julii 1623 by Pascall Parlande William Hunte and Thomas Howell as underwritten.
Imprimis in the shop in winestreete and at home in the house
XI dozen and a halfe of Kersey hose at
18s per dozen is £10 07 06
It 12 dozen less two peyre of other sorte at 12s p[er] dozen is 07 02 00
It a dozen and a helfe of the smallest syce at 8s per dozen is 03 08 00
It 7 peyre of black kersey hose at 00 08 00
It 17 dozen of collerde irishe hose at 14s p[er] doz 04 18 00
It i dozen of smale ireishe hose collerde at 00 08 00
It 4 peyre of smale kersey hose at 00 02 00
It 4 dozen of whyte Irishe hose at 10s p[er] dozen is 02 00 00
It 2 dozen less one peyre of whyte kersey hose at 01 03 00
It 3 dozen and a halfe of white and gray ireish hose at 6d p[er]
Dozen is 01 01 00
It 9 peyre of smale lynene hose at 00 06 00
It 5 peyre of Wollene knit stockins at 00 05 00
It 24 yeards of Irish frize at 8d p[er] yard is 00 16 –
It 9 peyre of hose at 00 09 00
It for shilves and biffetts and 3 peyre of sheeres one
Chest to drawe stokins upon and 1/2 of thride 00 06 00
32 19 00
In the shop at home one cobb, one table board one old chest
One barrel one tressell 4 yrone peeles 2 pecks and
One halfe peck measures 5 incissing knives and other old tryfels prised at 0 08 00
It in the syller 1 barge I stand and other washing tubs and one horse to put
Beare upon at 00 05 00
It in the kitchine one payre of smale racks
One craine 9 broches 1 slyce and tongs 1
Little peyre of dogs 2 short iron bares 1 peyre of
Pott hookes and 3 hangers at 00 18 -6
It 2 short table boards with one frame one
Forme one chaire 8 wodene tryes 6 wodene
Platters, I pail 4 dozen of trenchers 00 08 00
It one standing bedsteed with matt and cord
One trockle bedsteed at 00 13 04
It 2 featherbeds and 2 feather boulsters one pillow
2 ould yellow ruges one green rogg 4 pantatha (pintado)
Curtenes with curtene rodds at 03 03 04
It 2 litle iron dogs at 00 01 06
It 2 dozen of quissiones at 00 08 00
It one byble and other smale books at 00 10 00
It in lunene and napry in sheets good one badd 17 payre at 04 00 00
It 2 dyep[er] table clothes 22 dyep[er] napkins at 00 18 00
It 4 other table clothes 2 syde boarde cloths
3 long towels 6 pillowe beres 00 16 00
It 4 dozen of flaxen napkins and 3 dozen of
Course napkins and towels at 4s p[er] dozen is 01 08 00
It 4 course short table clothes at 00 04 00
It in ould pewter dishes mettle pottengers and
Sawcers 2£ at 7d p[er] pound is 08 08 00
It in ould pewter pott mettll 60li at 6d is 01 10 00
It I peyre of brass candlstocks one pestle
And morter at 00 08 00
It 3 smale brass candlesticks one skynner
And 4 oulde skillets at 00 03 00
It 4 smal brass pannes weying 28li at 00 14 00
It 4 brass potts and one mortter weyinge 82li
At iiiid p[er] pound is 01 07 04
It 2 litle irone potts and 2 driping pannes and one
Latine pott lide at 00 04 00
In the fore parlor one table board with one frame 5 wynde stooles
2 chaires one syde boarde at 00 13 04
It 2 spruce chests one press at 02 10 00
It 1 peyre of irone bandirons with dogs
Slyce and tongs at 00 16 00
It one standing bedsteed with mat and corde
And one trockle bedsteede at 00 16 00
It 2 feather beds 2 feather boulsters 2 feather
Pillows and one green rug at 02 11 00
It one peyre of green curtenes and valliance 00 13 04
It 4 smale tabells at 00 02 0-
Item one ould arass coverlet one irish rug3 pintado curtains
One carpet one green syde board cloth and I syd board cushion at 01 13 04
It in the back parlour one table board with a frame 6 ioynte stooles 1 syde boarde at 00 10 00
It in the cock loft 2 halfe headed bedsteeds with mats
And cords one flock bed one bolster 4 old blankets
Or coverlets and 1 syde bed 00 10 00
It 2 ould calivers and 1 birding peece at 00 04 00
It all the deceased his wearing apparel at 08 00 00
It one table salte giolte weying 20oz ½
At 5s 6d the ounce is 05 13 05
It 2 gilt boules wy 15 oz 3/8 at 5s 6d per ounce 04 04 05
It 2 parcell gilt beakers wey 18 oz at 5s oz 04 10 00
It one beareboule wey 12 oz ½ 1/8 at 5s is 04 10 00
It 2 whyt wine boules wey 14 oz 1/8 at 4s 10d 03 08 03
It 6 maiden heade spoones wey 7 oz ½ at 5s 01 17 06
It one cruse garnish value at 01 18
Ot 2 covers of cruses valued at 1 12 08
It one gould ring at 0 16 0
It in reddy mony 06 00 00
117 19 19
Middling Culture 