Monday, 19 January 2009

Thomas Goes Shopping!

16 February 1738

Bout of Mr Payne the Back St Clements the things as under
8 yds Light Grey fine Camblitt 2/6 yd £1-0-0
15yds Bla. Lace to Lace yr Coat 18-9
3½yds Bla. Padusoy for a Waistcoat £1-11-6
2½yds Bla. allapeen 5-0
3½yds Supr fine Shalloon 7-7


Lots of unfamiliar words there - Camblitt? Seems to be a variation of Camlet, a fabric possibly made from camel hair or derived from the Arabic for Goat but most fabrics of this name were only woven to look like fabric from those fibres.
Padusoy - a woven silk with a corded texture
Shalloon -A lightweight wool or worsted twill fabric, used chiefly for coat linings.

Allapeen - now I'm going all academic on you....

This definition comes from

Dictionary of Traded Goods and Commodities, 1550-1820 ,Nancy Cox and Karin Dannehl (2007)

Alepine[allo-peen; allopeen; allapeene; allapeen; alapeene]

A TEXTILE in the form of a mixed STUFF, either of WOOL and SILK, or of MOHAIR and COTTON, used primarily for men's CLOTHING but also for UPHOLSTERY [Montgomery (1984)].

OED earliest date of use: 1739

Found described as BLACK, DOUBLE, SINGLE

Sources: Inventories (late), Tradecards.
References: Montgomery (1984).

Wow! Thomas has pushed the date of first use as recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary back by a year!


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